Team:KUAS Korea/Collaborations
Collaborations
One of our goals this year is to communicate in science and to educate future synthetic biologists. More than just studying synthetic biology and working on a project by ourselves, therefore, we attempted to communicate with other iGEM teams - especially with high school teams we shared synthetic biological knowedges and our last experiences in iGEM - in order to foster co-working attitude. To do this, this year we collaborated with NYUAD team from Abu Dhabi, KOREA team and KOREA_HS team from South Korea.
NYUAD collaboration
On July 18, we held a collaboration with NYU_Abu_Dhabi team by Skype. We had time to answer questions about each other's research subjects and to talk about the progress of the Human practice activities. The NYU_Abu_Dhabi will feature the creation of portable disease detection kits for travelers. It said that the kits can detect five diseases and the gene fracture will be detected within 30 minutes, mainly using a CRISPR, and belongs to the diagnostics track as an iGem track. Their Human Practice activities mainly involve collaboring with other teams in the form of science sketch. Science scetch is a repository for short, accessible videos about research. Our team also learned how the other team works through Skype with NYU_Abu_Dhabi team, and this collaboration has been a good motivator for the igem activity.
On August 22, two members of the Abu Dhabi team -- Yeji Kwon, Yujeong Oh -- were to come to Korea and observed the KUAS meeting. During the meeting, we talked about what synthetic biology is. They said they thought synthetic biology is an engineering approach to biology and has all agreed that it is closely related to many fields. They also agreed that all of them should be able to create biological systems through synthetic biology to solve problems or create something new they want. It was a meaningful time to investigate the international perspective on synthetic biology. Synthetic biology also had time to build rapport, including members of the Abu Dhabi team, after the biology conference and was promise to meet in Boston again.
The Human Practice team members gathered to create a science sketch to send to the NYU_Abu_Dhabi team on September 22. We made a video explaining how our team's theme bioluminescent targeting system will be applied and the main mechanism of eukaryotic bioluminescent luminescent system that we use.
Please refer to our science sketch that collaborated with NYU_Abu_Dhabi team > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5rrgO-bq9A
Team KOREA_HS
Figure 1. Skyping with Team KOREA_HS members
This year’s KUAS collaborated with many high school teams, and one of them was KOREA_HS. Team KOREA_HS is a team consisting of high school students from different countries, and we had a virtual meeting with them via Skype.
KOREA_HS was mainly interested in managing the iGEM research project and the specific roles each team has to carry out. This included the methods used to select the project topic, the roles that the dry lab team needs to perform, and examples of a good human practice project. We answered the questions based on our previous experiences in iGEM and exemplary projects on the iGEM page.
We emphasized the modeling efforts of the dry lab team, and the significance of predicting the outcomes of the experiments. We also suggested several different approaches to the public by showing them our previous projects. And we reminded them that iGEM was not solely about demonstrating a perfect and readily available product, but about new ideas and approaches that can inspire future generations of scientists. Therefore, we advised them to go after what inspires them the most, and what captures their interest the most. There were many more details on iGEM and the Giant Jamboree that we had felt through our past experiences, so that they would not go through the same trial and error as we did.
Through this collaboration, we could share our understandings and views on iGEM and the field of synthetic biology, and have a chance to look back on our project.
Team KOREA
Figure 2. Meeting Team KOREA members
KUAS is the only collegiate team in Korea, and the only team to annually take part in the iGEM Giant Jamboree, with a total of 12 entries. Therefore, we thought it our responsibility to share our experiences and thoughts on iGEM, and what we had learned through it with other teams in Korea. This is why we arranged multiple mentoring session with high school teams, and one of them was team KOREA.
Team KOREA is a newly registered high school team, and this is their first time participating in the Giant Jamboree. We had kept in touch for some time through email, and had shared ideas and opinions on our projects. We arranged a mentoring session to be held at Korea University, and there we met with team KOREA.
We first had a presentation on our projects. Team KOREA’s topic was the optogenetic treatment of Parkinson’s disease, utilizing a fusion receptor protein to detect light signals. During discussions Team KOREA mentioned difficulties during cloning, and so we advised them on the strengths and weaknesses of different cloning methods. Meanwhile team KOREA had feedbacks on our team’s project as well, including suggestions of using 3D printers in creating a model for our bioluminescent tatoo system.
We also had discussions on managing an iGEM project in general, and the actual Jamboree experience. We told them about our past projects, how they unfolded, and other various trial and error we went through. We also presented a guideline for their dry lab activities, and suggested various programs for human practice activities. We shared several episodes from our former Jamboree experiences, and what we had learned from them. We concluded with the advice that iGEM didn’t just judge teams by their results, but also by the process of getting there.
The mentoring session with team KOREA was mutually beneficial, as we gained insight on our project from different perspectives and had a chance to dwell on it. We also learned a lot on the core values of iGEM during preparation for the mentoring. We are continuing our cooperation with team KOREA, and hope to do so in the future as well.
Figure 3. Presenting our team's project to Team KOREA
Figure 4. Introducing our lab to Team KOREA